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ANNIE GET YOUR GUN scored a bulls eye when it returned to Broadway in 1999, starring Bernadette Peters and sporting a revised libretto by Tony, Oscar and Emmy winner Peter Stone. As Newsday reported, Stone's revisions 'are sweetly ingenious, and the show is a dream.' Stone reshaped the 1946 book to create a Wild West show-within-a-show that frames the ageless 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better' love story of sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler. Stone has added a secondary romance between the younger sister of Frank's bothersome assistant Dolly, and a boy who is (to Dolly's horror) part Native American. 'The book has been updated in ways that pass p.c. muster,' reported Time Magazine, 'without losing all the fun.' Joined to the new book, of course, is that amazing Irving Berlin score, featuring hit after hit after hit. 'Irving Berlin's greatest achievement in the theater,' wrote the New York Post, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN 'will always be a musical for the ages, one of the Broadway theater's enduring triumphs.'

About The Show

Production Info

Fan Info:

"Siam sur Seine" - "Siam on the Seine." So did the company of The King and I at Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris name themselves during their triumphant reign earlier this summer. This resplendent production, starring international opera star Susan Graham (alternating with Christine Buffle) and French film star Lambert Wilson, represented the R&H musical's Parisian premiere. read more

The birthday of Dorothy Fields, one of the first popular female songwriters to rise to prominence in America. In addition to her many collaborations with Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, and brother Herbert Fields, she co-authored the book for Irving Berlin's ANNIE GET YOUR GUN.

The birthday of Herbert Fields, who wrote the book for the musicals ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and A CONNECTICUT YANKEE.

The birthday of writer Peter Stone, who collaborated with Richard Rogers on the musical TWO BY TWO. His revised libretto for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN led to its Tony-winning revival in 1999.

In 1999, the Broadway revival of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN opened at the Marquis Theatre, where it ran for 1,045 performances and won two Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical.

The birthday of Lonny Price, book writer and director of the musical A CLASS ACT. Price has also directed stage concerts of PAL JOEY for Encores, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN at Lincoln Center Theatre, and SWEENEY TODD starring George Hearn and Patti LuPone with the New York Philharmonic.

"The book has been updated in ways that pass P.C. muster, without losing all the fun." — Time Magazine

"The fixes are sweetly ingenious and the show's a dream." — Newsday

"The fixes are sweetly ingenious and the show's a dream." — Newsday

“Irving Berlin's music is simply the most enchanting and distinguished complete score he ever wrote. Here we have his musical gems with dazzling new orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin. Herbert and Dorothy Fields' original book was pretty darn good to begin with. Peter Stone has dusted off the cobwebs of 50 years and provided a clear, revised book, chock-full of laughs, while always respecting the quality and integrity of the original.” — Fergus McGillicuddy, TalkinBroadway.com

"The real star of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN-- in 1946, in 1999 and in 200 years-- is Berlin's music. Song after hum- it, whistle- it song." — Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp

"Irving Berlin’s great musical comedy has one wonderful song after another." — Toby Zinman, The Inquirer

Phoebe Ann Mosey (often misspelled as Mozee or Moses) was born in a log cabin in Darke County, Ohio, in 1860. She fired her first shot at the age of 8 and by age 12 was the chief provider for her large and hungry family. Thanks to her mastery of the rifle and shotgun, she paid off the mortgage on the Mosey homestead through the sale of surplus wild game to a Cincinnati hotel owner.

The fame of this amazing little shooter exploded throughout Ohio and the mid-west when she defeated Frank Butler, vaudeville's champion marksman and trick shot. Butler not only lost the match, he lost his heart to this shy little shooter. One year later, Frank and Annie were married. Frank felt certain husband and wife teams would face difficulty being booked by agents, and he and Annie decided that she should have a professional name. Annie chose "Oakley," after a kind and generous man who had befriended her in an earlier time of crisis. As Annie Oakley's fame grew, Frank realized his bride was attracting far more attention than he as she stunned audiences with her phenomenal accuracy. He soon brought her to the attention of Nate Salsbury, the genius manager of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Frank withdrew from competition to concentrate on managing Annie's career.

Touring Europe with the Wild West Show in 1887, Annie twice gave private demonstrations for Queen Victoria, defeated Grand Duke Michael of Russia in a match arranged by the Prince of Wales, and in Berlin shot a cigarette from the lips of Kaiser Wilhelm. After a tragic train accident, Annie retired from the Wild West Show in 1901. She starred in a Broadway play, THE WESTERN GIRL, in 1902 and '03. She also continued to perform at Charity events—Annie Oakley never refused a Charity request if the beneficiaries were either orphaned girls, deserving young women, or actors.

Annie Oakley's feats as a sharpshooter are legendary. At thirty paces she shot a dime from between her husband's thumb and forefinger with a .22 rifle and with this weapon could hit two-inch flying balls by sighting them in the shiny surface of a bowie knife. Once she hit 943 out of 1000 flying balls in a rapid fire demonstration and, at the age of 56, using three double-barreled guns, punctured in midair six balls sprung from as many traps. Her prowess was immortalized in the lingo of Broadway when, in the pre-computerized days of hard tickets, complimentary tickets identified by the holes punched in them were called "Annie Oaklies" since they duplicated the holes Annie shot in flying playing cards.

Annie Oakley died in Greenville, Ohio on November 3, 1926. Frank Butler died eighteen days later. They are buried side-by-side in Brock Cemetery, just a few miles from her birthplace.

The musical that celebrates "doin' what comes natur'lly" began with an idea that was an absolute natural: Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley. Bulls eye.

The idea of doing a musical based on the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley originated with Dorothy Fields in the mid 1940s, who never considered anyone but her friend Ethel Merman for the lead. (By this time Herbert and Dorothy Fields had co-authored four musicals for Merman, the most recent being SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS in 1943). Merman instantly agreed to take on the show, but when the Fields' longtime producer Mike Todd turned the project down, they took it to a team of producers who, though novices in the field of producing, knew a thing or two about musicals nevertheless—Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Having scored with two folk American musicals of their own (OKLAHOMA! and CAROUSEL), Rodgers & Hammerstein were all too happy to sign on as producers of what was originally called ANNIE OAKLEY. Hammerstein's longtime partner Jerome Kern was to write the music, Dorothy Fields the lyrics, and Dorothy and Herbert were to co-author the book. Jerome Kern's sudden death in November of 1945 changed everything.

Rather than scuttle plans for ANNIE OAKLEY, Rodgers, Hammerstein and the Fields turned instead towards finding the right team or person to take on the job of writing the score. All four felt unanimously that there was one person absolutely right for the job, but since he wrote words as well as music, Dorothy Fields would have to relinquish her role as lyricist. She had no trouble making her decision—if Irving Berlin would write the score for ANNIE OAKLEY, Dorothy Fields would happily step aside.

Irving Berlin had not written for Broadway since LOUISIANA PURCHASE in 1940, and, fresh from a patriotic three year stint with his revue THIS IS THE ARMY, he was at first skeptical that his unique style was still in fashion. The musical revolution that Rodgers & Hammerstein had fomented with OKLAHOMA! changed the rules, and Berlin wasn't sure he wanted to play by them. Still, it made sense when Rodgers & Hammerstein suggested that Berlin borrow the script, look at it over the weekend and see if he couldn't come up with a tune or two.

Berlin took their advice and the following Monday morning he came bounding into their office with three completed songs under his arms: "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun," "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," and "There's No Business Like Show Business." Bulls eye again.

Directed by Joshua Logan, with sets by Jo Mielziner and costumes by Lucinda Ballard, starring Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley and Ray Middleton as Frank Butler, and with a rousing new title, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN opened at the Imperial Theatre, New York, on May 16, 1946. It was a smash success and the critics cheered.

"For verve and buoyancy, unslackening, there has seldom if ever been a show like it," said William Hawkins in the World Telegram. In the Post Vernon Rice declared "Irving Berlin has outdone himself this time. No use trying to pick a hit tune, for all the tunes are hits." Lewis Nichols of the New York Times modestly maintained that "it takes little gift of prophecy to add that [ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and Ethel Merman] will chant their saga of sharp-shooting for many months to come." In fact, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN ran on Broadway for an astounding 1,147 performances. (The first musical after OKLAHOMA! to go over the 1000+ performance plateau, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN was, along with Rodgers & Hammerstein's OKLAHOMA!, SOUTH PACIFIC and THE KING AND I, part of the elite quartet of longest running musicals in Broadway's golden era.)

Dolores Gray starred in the 1947 London production, which ran at the Coliseum for 1,304 performances. Mary Martin headed the U.S. national tour, which began in October of 1947 and travelled for nineteen months; she subsequently played Annie to John Raitt's Ray Butler in a 1957 NBC telecast. MGM released the movie version of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN in 1956; Betty Hutton starred (in a role originally slated for Judy Garland), and Howard Keel played Butler.

In 1966 Ethel Merman re-created her role in a Music Theater of Lincoln Center production, presented by Richard Rodgers. Irving Berlin wrote a new song for this production, "An Old Fashioned Wedding."

In the years since, hundreds of actresses have played Annie Oakley, from Paris (ANNIE DU FAR-WEST) to Berlin (SCHIESS LOS, ANNIE!), from Evi Hayes in Melbourne, Australia to Chiemi Eri in Tokyo, Japan. ANNIE GET YOUR GUN has been seen in Kuala Lumpur, Zimbabewe, Venezuela and throughout Europe. The R&H Theatre Library, which licenses productions of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, estimates that 450 productions are given in the United States every year.

In the 1990s ANNIE GET YOUR GUN kept "doin' what comes natur'lly" with a sumptuous studio recording from EMI Records, featuring Kim Criswell and Thomas Hampson under the musical direction of John McGlinn; a U.S. national tour starring Cathy Rigby, directed by Susan Schulman, which originated at the Houston Grand Opera in July 1992 and toured throughout the following year; and a U.K. national tour and West End production starring Kim Criswell and John Dierdrich.

At the end of the 20th century Annie Oakley aimed her bullets over Broadway once more, with a Tony winning revival starring Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat. Opening in April 1999, it ran on Broadway for over two and a half years, and spawned a successful national tour. In its second year, country music star Reba McEntire made her Broadway debut in the title role, and took the town by storm.

"Berlin's greatest achievement in the theater," wrote New York Post critic Clive Barnes about the '99 revival, "should carry ANNIE GET YOUR GUN happily into the next century and a bit beyond. It will always be a musical for the ages, one of the Broadway theater's enduring triumphs."

Vocal Range of Characters:

"When I first arrived in New York as a stage struck teenager, I saw my first Broadway show, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. Then over fifty years later when I was offered a chance to update the book of this classic show, I realized I could not possibly refuse. The challenge was to make the show look and sound the way it did to audiences of 1946.

But to do that, it couldn\'t be as it was at that time. We\'ve enveloped ANNIE GET YOUR GUN within Buffalo Bill\'s Wild West Show. In this way, the simple and naive qualities of the original musical could be preserved within the contemporary treatment. I believe that the qualities of the original show have been preserved, along with its great and eternal spirit."

"The big challenge is taking a book that was wonderfully crafted for its time and make it wonderfully crafted for our time. ANNIE GET YOUR GUNbore little resemblance to a show you could do today, in respect to consistency of character, the relationships between people, the relevance of certain songs as they came in. Also, we were dealing with what is, frankly—well, I don't want to use the term "politically incorrect," though that's the term that's floating around these days. It was terribly insensitive, as we all were then, to Indians. It wasn't the fault of anybody. But it had to be dealt with in a way that was heartfelt and not obvious. I'm president of the Dramatists Guild and I'm very sensitive to [revising another writer's work]. I've doctored six Broadway shows, always with the permission of the authors. In this case, it was with the permission of the heirs. They're terribly pleased with it all. I would not change it against the wishes of the copyright owner."

KeyboardEase:This unique resource is designed specifically to meet the needs of productions that want convenient, cost-effective access to these hard to find keyboard sounds. We have carefully assembled all sounds required for a given show. Everything is laid out in correct sequential order, so you can easily progress through each song in each keyboard book with professional, authentic, show-specific sounds. All you have to do is connect any standard keyboard (or multiple keyboards) to your laptop and you'll be ready to perform. And we'll help you every step of the way.

AccompanEase:AccompanEase: This product is a rehearsal tool that allows for unlimited teaching, training and practice of individual vocal parts or dance sequences. Contact Realtime Music Solutions for more information: www.accompanease.com, via email: info@rms.biz, or via phone: 212-620-0774

InstrumentalEase: InstrumentalEase is now available for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (Peter Stone Version). This new product is an orchestra enhancement instrument capable of augmenting a traditional ensemble of any size. Contact Realtime Music Solutions for more information: www.rms.biz, via email: info@rms.biz, or via phone: 212-620-0774.

MAKE YOUR OWN PLAYBILL! Playbill VIP allows you to create your very own Playbill Program. We have provided Playbill with all of the credits, song listings, musical numbers and more so that most of the work is already done for you. Just add your productions details, photos of the cast and share it with all of your friends. Learn more: www.playbillvip.com

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN takes place in the context of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show featuring various settings around the Mid-West, Europe and New York City.

SPECIFIC LOCATIONS
The Big Top
The Front Lawn of the Wilson Arms Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio
A Pullman car on the Overland Steam Train
The Main Tent on the Minneapolis Fair Grounds
Annie's Dressing Tent
The European Tour
The Upper Deck of a Cattle Boat
The Ballroom at the Hotel Brevoort in New York City
The Property Room
The Shooting Match

Featured News

Rodgers and Hammerstein Europe 2014

"Siam sur Seine" - "Siam on the Seine." So did the company of The King and I at Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris name themselves during their triumphant reign earlier this summer. This resplendent production, starring international opera star Susan Graham (alternating with Christine Buffle) and French film star Lambert Wilson, represented the R&H musical's Parisian premiere. Read More

Media Rights

Promotional

1. The Promotional Video shall be recorded and shown for the sole purposes of advertising your licensed production of the Play. For such a video, R&H allows theatres to film up to 10 minutes of total footage taken at either a performance or rehearsal (i.e.: 10 minutes of scripted moments.)

2. The Promotional Video may not include more than (i) 1 minute from any song or (ii) 3 minutes, in the aggregate, of footage of copyrighted material from the Play.

3. The Promotional Video may not include any sponsorship or underwriting without the prior consent of all R&H.

4. The Promotional Video must be submitted to R&H by sending the source video and video link to editor@rnh.com.

5. The Promotional Video must include the following: "Rights courtesy of Rodgers & Hammerstein, www.rnh.com"

6. Upon approval by R&H of the Promotional Video, you agree not to make any alterations in the approved copyrighted material used therein and you agree to obtain the prior written approval of R&H for any other use of the Promotional Video not specifically granted herein.

7. Upon termination of the Term, you shall cease to have any rights to use the Promotional Video including, without limitation, in connection with a future production of the Play, and shall immediately remove its content from any and all websites on the Internet.

8. You may not use a commercially available recording.

9. Any additional promotional rights must be approved by R&H by contactingTheatre@rnh.com.

*Promotional video rights can only be granted once a performance license for Annie Get Your Gun (Stone) has been secured. Please contact customer service if you have any questions. If you have not yet applied for Annie Get Your Gun (Stone), you can do so here. LOG IN to learn more.